First Look. This review was full of surprises. First was the publication of the newest Vue. I have to say it's very professional and good-looking. The Full boxed version is impressive and users will find inside a full package of everything a use should expect from a professional software.
Of course, the most important are CD's - the application CD, which we will need to install the program, and 2 extra CD's full of samples scenes, animations, and other goodies. The CD carrier substitutes quick reference card with all keyboards shortcuts and mouse operations and in an interface overview. All this is made precisely and gives a good impression. The Reference manual is very detailed and contains not only a description of all functions and tutorials but even advice and basic information of framing and picture composition. A Very nice gift from Vue's producers are post cards with printed Vue's scenes. We can use them to boast to our friend we bought Vue 4 professional for example:) Besides this we will find full colored flyers of other e-on products and of course, a registration card.
Easy-To-Use but Powerful. What makes Vue 4 professional such a great tool? Its UI is very intuitive - it offers a standard 4 view layout, which can be maximized and resized to get more precision. Thanks to fast, dual-resolution OpenGL engine, that allows both fast and detailed previewing of scenes, and complete with textured plants, lens flares, planets and atmospheres, previewing is helpful and lets us save time for test renders. All options and functions are easy and fast to use - we don't have to lose time to find them in many lists and tables. The Authors focused on creating software that allow us to attain amazing effects with less cost, so it's user friendly and efficient, and after few hours of work all the program's tools are clear and understandable.
The Major aim of Vue 4 professional is creating good-looking 3D natural environment, so the important thing is for it to synchronize with others 3D applications, where you can create complex models and character animation. Vue 4 professional comes with synchronization plug-ins that allow us to import already made objects (Decimate allow us to reduce polygon count to gain memory space), the camera path and lights information. G-buffer channels allow us to composite environment rendered in Vue 4 professional with objects rendered in other applications. Vue 4 professional gives us the opportunity to easily export trees, plants, rocks and terrains with all UV mapping and texturing information. We were able to export all scenes, even animation (motion, scale, orientation, wind deformation of plants) too.
Synchronization: 3DS Max 4.2+, Cinema 4D XL7+, Maya 4.0+, LightWave 7+, Softimage XSI
3D import: 3DS, COB, DEM, DXF, LWO, OBJ, PZ3, RAW, SHD
3d export: 3DS, C4D, COB, DXF, LWO, OBJ, SHD
Vision Become Real. How do we work in Vue 4 professional? Well, you can imagine this work as separate steps in a world's birth. First of all we need is the sky. It's a part of complete atmosphere system, which can be easily changed by the user in every aspect. In the beginning of creating our scene we will be ask by Vue 4 professional to choose one of over 100 predefined atmospheres, that represent different moods. But it's only a base for us to create unique atmosphere. In atmosphere editor we are able to set all details of the sun, light, and clouds (including animation). Our atmosphere can be more realistic thanks to fog, haze and wind, that has influence on all plants we will create in our scene. We can even add several effects like rainbows, stars, and ice rings or every planet from solar system and change its phase.
Our next step is to create a base for our environment. We are able to choose between ground and water - simply click and have got ocean in our scene. Vue 4 professional gives us opportunity to build very detailed terrains. The terrain editor provides a set of powerful tools designed to let users easily model realistic terrains. Thanks to unique Solid3D real-time technology terrain we are working on is displayed as a 3D map so we can easily follow every step we make with object. The shape of the terrain is modified by painting tools, that allow us to choose correct size or strength of our brush. Vue 4 professional is synchronized with tablets, so users have got huge precision in carving terrains. When we sculpted the basic shape of the terrain we were able to apply many geological effects like erosion, peaks, craters, canyons etc. Vue 4 professional allow users to import terrain data in already made black and with images in formats like jpg, gif, dem, tga, etc. After finishing our terrain we can simply export it to other software, where creating such a detailed terrain would be harder.
Vue 4 professional has one of the most advanced plant generation technologies, called SolidGrowth, which comes with over 30 different plant species. Each plant can be modified in plant editor, so users are able to create plants exactly like they want or even crate new species. Best of all, these plants will automatically move in the wind, so animation of natural environment have never been made so easy. Editing plants is simplified by real-time review, so users are able to see all changes.
Vue 4 professional isn't a modeling tool (all complex models should be imported from other 3d packages), but designers give users access to basic modeling options, such as Boolean operations. It's quite powerful tool, that is perfect for a architecture's job.
All objects created in Vue 4 professional (terrains, plants) are defined with the default beige material. Users can simple and vastly improved materials to gain their applicable effect, for example a snowy scenery. The material library is full of complex already made materials and textures (like rocks, landscapes, liquids even clouds) which can be mixed.
Vue 4 professional lets users animate other (besides plants) elements of the scene, including the properties of objects, materials, atmospheres, clouds and more. To be honest, creating basic animation has never been so easy. Thanks to move wizard users, going through few steps, are able to create convincing animations, for example flythrough of natural scenery - so it's perfect for architects to show projects.
Rendering process in Vue 4 professional is as user friendly and easy as it could be. We don't have to learn hundreds of options to reach satisfying effects. Of course rendering engine gives us access to many professional options, like soft shadows, motion blurring, depth of field and much more, that will make our renders more convincing and impressive. Vue 4 professional features an advanced hybrid network rendering engine that is easy to setup and use. By default, Vue 4 professional ships with 5 render nodes - so we can easily make our animation even 5 times faster.
Vue 4 professional provides an open architecture. We can create plug-ins, file converters or new rendering effects using easy-to-use Phyton scripting language.
ConclusionVue 4 professional is definitely the most efficient and advanced solution for creating, animating and rendering natural 3D scenery. It's perfect for architects, game designers, concept artists and all those, who would like to create convincing and impressive 3D natural environments. I'm perfectly sure I will be using it for my art work to create backgrounds and environments to make my work more beautiful.
Please visit Vue's web site
HERE. For all those, who would like to test this tool, please register and download demo version
HERE.Best Regards,
Evermotion Team
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